Thursday, September 12, 2013

The Subsequent Return of the Annual Beach Trip

We took another year off on account of two pregnancies in 2012 but made it back to the beach last weekend for our {semi} annual friends trip. And the good news is (unless Miche gets her way and has a third) we all seem to be done having kids. So long live a truly annual trip!

Kenny unfortunately couldn’t leave work early on Thursday, so we didn’t get to the condo until 9:30 that night. And while Riley was wide awake the whole time, Rory luckily fell asleep shortly into the drive and transferred fairly well to the pack-n-play once we arrived. The kids were all so excited to be there that they ran around and played until after midnight but were still raring to go the next morning.

We stayed at a new place this year, and we all really liked it. We rented a two-story, four-bedroom condo in the Colonnades complex right on the beach in Gulf Shores.

The unit is located right off the pool, so it was kind of like we had our own private place to swim. But we did allow some of the other guests to use it every now and then. Nice of us, huh?

We had good weather the whole time we were there, and the water was decent, although we did see some jellyfish. Riley had a great time playing in the sand with Nathan, Jackson, and Hayden; Molly and Maddie built their own little sand seat on the shore; Alden took a great nap in the tent; and Rory loved watching the waves.

We also got to meet Myles, who is one week older than Rory. Becky and Jeff just happened to be vacationing in Destin for the week, so they drove over on Friday to spend the day with us. So great to see them and their two boys…..the kids truly seem to be outnumbering us these days! At least we’re bigger than them. For now.

The condo was a great size for us, with lots of common space and openness for the kids to play in. When they weren’t sitting in front of a movie, of course. We did that fairly often over the course of our three days there…..playing in the sun and sand is tiring.

So much so that, on our last night there before we had even eaten dinner, I snapped this picture of Kenny and the boys…..

…..only to glance back over at them five minutes later to see this:

I put Rory to bed and came back downstairs to find Riley still passed out. And he remained that way even through a transfer from Kenny to me.

Then he woke up and changed position. And passed out again.

So now summer is officially over. We drove back home on Sunday, ready to start a new week of school, work, and responsibilities. But it sure was nice to take a few days off.

Love your family "signature" at the end of the post ... will be interesting to watch it change through the years! What a great tradition to establish with your friends, you will treasure these annual trips, hope u are all able to keep them up.